WYCHERLEY TRIAL: Daughter admits shooting her mum

A woman accused of murdering her parents says she shot her mum after her mother had killed her father, a court heard today.

Susan Edwards (56) admitted the manslaughter of Patricia Wycherley when she appeared at Nottingham Crown Court yesterday but maintained her not guilty plea to two counts of murder.

Susan Edwards and her husband Christopher Edwards (57) both deny murdering Mrs Wycherley and her husband William, whose bodies were discovered at their Blenheim Close home in Forest Town, last year.

But outlining the case for the prosecution on the second day of the trial today, Peter Joyce QC told the jury that following her arrest in October last year, Susan Edwards told police that she had shot her mother while staying at their Blenheim Close home over the May Bank Holiday weekend in 1998.

She did this following a row where Mrs Wycherley had shot and killed her husband William Wycherley during a row, the court heard.

Edwards, who claims she was sexually abused by her father as a child, told police that she went into her parents room and saw her father lying dead on the ground and her mother with a gun.

The court was then told that Susan Edwards had rowed with her mother and killed her after Patricia Wycherley confessed to knowing about the abuse, and claiming she had an affair with Christopher Edwards.

Edwards then brought her husband up from London the following weekend, where she told him about the deaths while they ate the chip supper in the downstairs living area, the court heard.

The couple then watched the Eurovision Song Contest before Christopher Edwards went out in the dead of night and dug a grave for his parents-in-law.

The prosecution claim that the Edwards contrived to kill Mr and Mrs Wycherley because of money worries and then pilfered around £245,000 in benefits, loans and credit after the couple’s death.

Mr Joyce said: “Over the next fifteen years and in order to continue stealing money and to keep up the pretence that the couple were still alive, they lied to family members, they lied to neighbours and they lied to financial institutions - they lied to everybody.”